Phase II of SCTI Opens

Students, school district officials and representatives of the business community celebrated the grand opening of the new buildings with a ribbon-cutting ceremony Friday.

“We are so proud of our new buildings and the opportunity to serve Sarasota County employers,” said Todd Bowden, director of SCTI. “The new facilities we are officially opening today, and those that will open in two years after our next phase of construction, will allow us to help meet the workforce development needs for the next 40 to 50 years.”

Superintendent Lori White said the new SCTI “sends a message of respect for everyone who sees it. The quality of this facility tells our community that the skills that are developed here are as important as anything we teach. It’s not the college track versus the technical track; there is one track of lifelong learning. Our students will need a variety of skills to be part of tomorrow’s workforce and they can acquire those skills here.”

The section of SCTI that was dedicated Friday has been under construction since 2009. The cost of the project was about $39 million. It includes classroom space housing programs for culinary arts, cosmetology, digital design and video production, child care, health care, business technology and various other career programs.

Students in the culinary arts program will gain practical experience by working in the school’s Bistro 502, a full-service restaurant open to the public. The cosmetology class also will operate a commercial salon, The Cutting Edge. Students in the video production program will gain practical experience by working in the new Education Channel television studio now housed at SCTI.

Other areas of the new facility house a student services center, a cafeteria, administrative offices and a conference center.

The new SCTI buildings opened for students on March 14. They are Phase II of a three-phase project. Phase I was the Suncoast Polytechnical High School, which opened in August of 2008. SPHS was built as part of the SCTI campus to allow students in the technology-oriented high school convenient access to the advanced-technology courses offered at SCTI.

SCTI Phase III is under way and scheduled to open in 2013. When the entire rebuilding project is completed, the 63-acre campus will include five new buildings with 344,000 square feet of classroom space. The cost of Phase III is budgeted at about $40 million.